Any news on Cawley's Buck Rogers and Wild Wild West remakes?

Kickstarter does not work. Either you don't get enough pledges (as in this case) or money gets pledged, but when it comes time to collect then it fails. I have seen this happen to a couple start-up studios looking to film a pilot. Getting reliable sponsor and investors in these economic times is very very difficult.

Four out of ten. If I could get those odds out of the state lottery I'd feel silly calling it gambling.

It's like anything else - there's some luck involved, but ultimately you have to be offering something that people feel a strong desire to support beyond a momentary "that's cool" impulse and some lip service.

Well, as the Buck Rogers' series has gotten a lot of chat here, I'm going to address the other part of the question.

Cawley Entertainment Company/Retro Film Studios LLC is going to start filming their first "Back to the Wild Wild West" episode from November 1-10, 2011. It will either be "The Night of the Golden Spike" or "The Night of the Bloody Terror". Final decision on that is still pending.....

Production assistance sounds like providing prizes to show on the set, items to appear in the production, etc., not up-front capital investment to build sets, hire crew, etc. Please feel free to educate me if you have some references to how this works that I'm unaware of.

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No, "Production Assistance" sounds like they provide assistance in the production itself, which is exactly what it usually refers to. I wish I could provide some documentation to back this up. but this is one of those things that the industry doesn't like to share, and tends to be a bit hush-hush about. (I know about it because of a friend who used to work for Tribune Broadcasting, which is one of the nation's leading syndicators)...
I mean, you don't think that most of those syndicated daytime talk shows are on the air because they're all that popular, do you?...

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Honestly, while this in interesting, the relative "cheapness" of a show doesn't mean these sponsors are paying the producers to start up the series, which is what was being suggested for Buck Rogers Begins. It may happen, sure, but I'll bet said sponsors are generally backing producers with a proven track-record, not a group of fans who've made knock-offs of a TV show as a labor of love as opposed to a business.

Four out of ten. If I could get those odds out of the state lottery I'd feel silly calling it gambling.

It's like anything else - there's some luck involved, but ultimately you have to be offering something that people feel a strong desire to support beyond a momentary "that's cool" impulse and some lip service.

Honestly, while this in interesting, the relative "cheapness" of a show doesn't mean these sponsors are paying the producers to start up the series, which is what was being suggested for Buck Rogers Begins. It may happen, sure, but I'll bet said sponsors are generally backing producers with a proven track-record, not a group of fans who've made knock-offs of a TV show as a labor of love as opposed to a business.

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Truth be told, most of the syndicated shows are produced by Advertising agencies and PR firms, who have no track record at all with television production, and have reputations in advertising alone. They pitch the shows to their existing ad clients, and secure advertising agreements prior to doing anything else. Up-front advertising dollars often determines whether a pilot is ever made, let alone sets and the like. And in the early days of television, sponsors actually produced most of the programs aired, and paid for everything up front. It was the norm rather than the exception.

Granted, this doesn't necessarily have any application to the world of fan films, but I felt compelled to correct the notion of sponsors not paying for a production to be made, and instead only paying for a production after-the-fact.

Well, thanks for that. I knew that was the case for many syndicated shows, but wasn't as aware of the predominance of it in daytime. I'm much more familiar with the production and budgeting models around evening dramas, studios, and and network TV.

Hot damn, you necro'd this thread almost a year to the day of the last post. That takes skill, sir!

On topic:

It's not dead. Indefinite hold. Which sucks either way for the people looking forward to it. Given all the publicity they drummed up for themselves with this, with Gil Gerard and Erin Gray being in the trailer/tease, etc... you'd think they'd put out some kind of press release, but whatever. They don't owe us a damn thing, so I'm content to put my expectation on the shelf. If they make it/finish it, great. I'll watch it then.

No, not dead. Producers within RFS are still working on, well, producery things and it will come out of hibernation when they are ready to go again.

The fact that we released a licensed app for a iphone game should speak to the truth of that.

Gil's involvement was to play Buck's dad in the pilot. He did so...all his scenes are shot and the footage edited together. (It's being intercut with other footage not yet shot, so it can't be released or it won't make sense.) Without other involvement, he really is in no position to comment on the production, bless his helpful heart.

In addition to the iPhone app no longer appearing in the App Store, it appears all the references to the project on imdb have vanished. The kickstarter for the project didn't go anywhere. Its message board has been dead as a doornail for over a year. None of that proves anything, but it's not encouraging.